A brand new year is upon us, and with it a whole twelve months of shhhport from around the world. Well, mostly from inside my head, truth be known. So what awaits us in 2009?

Well, for a start, as far as I know, there are no World Cups of any kind, and, saints be praised, no stinking Olympics! Apparently the last cricket World Cup is still going, but my sources are the West Indian police, so I can’t confirm it with any more certainty than whether the Pakistan coach suicided, had a heart attack, or was carried away by killer bees. Click here to carbon-date that last joke.

Speaking of cricket, losing the Test series to South Africa, and before that, India, has thrown a new hero into the spotlight of my brain: Chairman of selectors Andrew Hilditch. I’m pleased to see that there’s someone in sporting administration more deliberately blind, arrogant, and with greater chutzpah and ability to speak absolute twaddle than Andrew Demetriou.

Along the lines of the old “what if God and the devil had a fight” scenario, imagine if Hilditch and Demetriou got together to run a major event, say the Melbourne Grand Prix? Return your tray tables to the upright position, and fasten your seatbelts, folks, this is one ride you won’t be able to get off no matter how loud you shout for your Mum.

Under a Hilditch/Demtriou regime, the Melbourne Grand Prix will be at 1am, in line with what the overseas networks (and the as yet untapped insomniac market) demand. All the Albert Park Labradors who panic and leap over the fence to get away from the noise will be declared un-Victorian and their owners slapped with $5000 fines for bringing the sport into disrepute. Andrew Symonds, despite not qualifying, will be given pole position because Punter really likes him, and again, the networks demand it, but mid-way through the race, when he’s losing by six laps, he’ll be replaced by either Tom Moody, because we’re building for the future, or some fifteen-year-old from NSW, because, well, he’s from NSW.

Anyone who walks past Albert Park for the three months’ construction time prior, and the one month dismantling time after the race will be counted as an attendee, as will cleaners, security, journalists and police, thus ensuring that, in defiance of the thirty million dollars it lost, somehow fourteen billion people bought tickets.

Speaking of tickets, only the rich will be able to afford to go, but they’ll all get in for free, and will proceed to “Do you know who I am?” at the door of every pub on the way home from the race after drinking free Fosters for the previous nine hours.

Melbourne will be renamed Ecclestonville, but we will pay him for the privilege. Everyone who owns a car will be forced to pay licensing fees to Bernie because Demetriou/Hilditch persuaded the government to grant him ownership of the word “car”, as well as first dibs on every woman in Melbourne under thirty and over five foot ten.

And, breathe.

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As I write this it’s late January (yes, I’m slightly ahead of deadline for once!), and you can’t pick up a newspaper or turn on the TV or kick over a rock without being assaulted by the bloody tennis. So I guess I’ll have to yield to the pressure and write something about the Australian Open, and I’ll be positive, I promise.

Lleyton Hewitt lost, there’s something that I love.

Something else I love is the genius of the commentators, who routinely and helpfully inform us of things like “new balls”, because we didn’t see the graphic on the screen, nor did we hear the umpire announce it, or the ballkids scurrying around opening new packets of balls, or the serving player displaying the new balls to the receiver.

I’m also a big fan of elite commentators like Fred Stolle and Tony Trabert, who display such a gift for sombrely reading out the scores and statistics that we can read for ourselves.

Also, the mind-reading abilities of these guys is astounding – so often they manage to glean that Player X “really wants to win this one”, and we at home can but sit and stare in slack-jawed amazement at this perspicacity.

The less said about Jim Courier’s lounge lizard post-match interviews, the better.

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Time now for a few predictions:

Anthony Mundine will line up and despatch a fearsome selection of nobodies, thus proving to us once again that he is Lance Armstrong, Don Bradman and Robert Harvey rolled up into one charming package.

Oh yeah, and he’ll fight Sam Soliman again, probably twice.

FIFA executives will embark on their three-year laugh-fest, as a bunch of Australian suits start handing over that $46 million the Dear Leader gave them for our World Cup bid. Naturally, after blowing most of it on Ken Done jumpers for the Asian delegates, they will request a re-buy of about another $20 mill or so, which will be forthcoming at a moment’s notice, because why the fuck would we want apprenticeships or doctors in the bush or a fucking national broadband system?

Local property developers and merchant bankers will persuade state governments to hand them piles of cash and crown land to build more stadia, which will be of particular humour value here in Victoria, because our local game is played on a field a hell of a lot bigger than a soccer pitch, and we already have enough 100m by 50m grounds to cater for the soccer and rugby, and despite the success of the Storm and the Victory, there’s no way even sports-mad Melbourne is going to be able to regularly fill another three 40 to 50 thousand seat venues.

I’m sorry, that was a bit of commonsense creeping into the argument there, and when it comes to state government ministers, the choice between commonsense and the erotic nuzzlings of a merchant banker and a Major Event, well, I’m outta here before they break out the Lube.

This year’s Tour de France will be even more fascinating than last year’s, thanks to the presence of Lance Armstrong, who will arrive slightly late to the starting line, having just done the Paris-Dakar in reverse, on a unicycle, with the SBS commentary team on his back.

Lots of French people will dress up as chickens in order to be on TV for three and a half seconds, and Phil Liggett will continue his dream run of looking at a peloton full of identical looking blokes in helmets and sunglasses and not only get their names right, but in many MacAvaney-savant-like outbursts will give their past three years’ results and the joke their senile uncle told last Christmas.

Unfortunately Armstrong’s Tour will end early as a result of a tragic incident with an ugly Belgian woman’s handbag, and the hideous Chihuahua sticking out of it.

I could say something about cycling’s drug cheat problem, but it just makes me too sad.

The AFL will sanction every football writer and commentator for mispronouncing or just plain ol’ forgetting the new name of SponsorDome. For those who have never got past calling it That Bastard High Altitude Dangerous Surface Crap Ticketing Long Queues Look How All The Best Seats Are Empty Fucking Corporates Bastard Bastard AFL Collo Conflict Of Interest Why The Fuck Does This Beer Cost Six Dollars Bastard Fuck Stadium I Hate Demetriou, its new naming rights sponsor is that old household name, Etihad Airlines.

Etihad is the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, and they apparently fly out of Melbourne, but they appear to have taken a bulk discount deal, and the same people who designed the ticketing system at their new footy ground have built their website for them, so I can’t confirm that.

As part of its ongoing campaign to recognise and promote human rights throughout Australia, the AFL is introducing yet another “name and shame” policy, this time targeted at clubs whose players misbehave in the wee hours. And the reason for this is? Heaven forfend that it’s a handy distraction to the price of a ticket or a beer or a bucket of chips, or the fact that THEY’RE SPONSORED BY A BREWERY.

Keep humiliating 20 year old kids, and that’ll stop us thinking too long or hard about why the hell half the games are on pay TV when only 20% of households have got it, and why certain broadcasters are allowed to show three quarters of their games on delay.

Just realised that this is supposed to be my predictions piece, so, um, I predict that the AFL will continue to behave like Robert Mugabe, minus the PR ability.

I further predict that I will mention Andrew Demetriou at least twelve times this year, and not once will I be complementary.

The fact that I’ve already mentioned him five times this month does not mean he’s getting a seven-month respite, by the way.

Juzzy, over and out.

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